Reply #14: from what I've seen of the book, he does discuss other empires

[Lisa]

The Persians, and the diverse "barbarian" kingdoms which my high school and college history courses just kind of skimmed by. (I haven't finished the book yet, but I'm going to be handing it along to a Persian friend, who's going to let me know what he thinks about the eastern sections.) Jones's point seems to be that what we think of as Western civilization actually has a bunch of ancestral cultures, not just Greece and Rome. I suppose Jones does have a hobbyhorse, but there are lots of other folks who have a "thing" for certain historical periods (the "Wild West"/Gold Rush, etc.) and pick and choose things to back up their own perspectives and ideology. I remember that some of the older historical texts made it sound like we wouldn't have had a modern world without ancient Rome -- that "Rome in the First Century" miniseries a few years back is closer to that perspective than to Jones's. I suspect it's just as inaccurate to claim that "Rome exemplified everything we value today", as it is to say that "Rome had no influence on our society" (or "it only introduced bad things into the world"), and there is so much that we don't understand about those centuries that anybody who keeps the debate going and stimulates more inquiry, I believe, is doing a valuable service.